The modern elevator is a wonder in itself and I remember my old office elevators which had the elevator boy who will take care of the buttons to press and do some form of crowd control. Most of them know which floor we will drop off by heart and never fail to smile & wish us good morning when we see them in the morning. Photo by cottonbro studio
Please read Part 1 here
I guess it was a matter of being in the wrong place i.e. in a malfunctioned elevator at the wrong time i.e. at lunchtime.
The elevator was crowded as usual so I stood at the side as usual which was a blessing in disguise as I could feel the cool breeze from the elevator ventilators. Those standing right in the center were not fortunate though.
Everyone in the elevator was silent – some were smiling, and others seem to be saying prayers in silence. One of us talked about the earlier joke about the malfunctioning elevator and everyone started to laugh. More jokes followed and for a moment there, I almost forgot that we were trapped in an elevator.
5 minutes may have passed and we heard someone trying to “unlock” the doors. Good, help is on the way – we just need to hold on for a couple of minutes and we will be out. Another 5 minutes had passed and we were still trapped in the elevator. By now, we could hear our colleagues’ voices on the other side.
The response from them does not look too good – apparently, we may need to wait another 30 minutes before they could get us out. By now, we noticed it was getting warmer inside the elevator and there is less laughing. True, getting stuck in an elevator during lunchtime was no laughing matter. We were both anxious and hungry.
“Go to the back!” someone from the outside suddenly shouted.
“Oh great, they are going to blow out the elevator doors with dynamites” was the thought that I had when I heard it. I imagined a SWAT team taking over the rescue operations and after a futile attempt to open the elevator, the conventional way, they decided to stick several C4s on the door and blow it up.
“Go to the back!” we heard it again.
The problem was the elevator was so full; we hardly had any space to go back. We squeeze as much as possible and provided a small space up in front. I was already calculating that at this rate, the front line will be taken out when the rescuers blow up the doors.
Thankfully that did not happen.
The doors slowly opened…
4 strong hands pried open the doors – there must have been at least 7 security guards on the other side. Whilst 3 of them hold back the doors, the others reached out their hands to pull the trapped ones out. Being gentlemen, we decided to allow the ladies to be rescued first.
As the ladies were being rescued, my mind started to wander off – the scenes from the movie “Speed” flashed in my mind and I still left wondering where the SWAT team is.
The ladies were rescued and it was the men’s turn. There was no rush to queue up to be pulled up but for some, ahem like me, hunger was getting better of judgment. I inched closer to the entrance and 2 big strong arms reached out to me.
We were stuck almost between the walls, so it was not easy to find the right footing. I had to actually place my leg higher, unbalance myself, and be at mercy of the hands that are reaching me. One slip of the hand will cause me to land back on my back.
Thankfully, one strong pull was all needed to get me out of the elevator and back on “solid” ground.
Once I was out, I started to feel dizzy and there was a very strong pain on the right side of my stomach. I found breathing getting more difficult. I quickly grabbed the stairway handle for balance and tried to breathe slowly. I must have strained my stomach “muscles” when I was pulled. I was in pain as we walked towards the car and the pain persisted the whole day long (indirectly showing how “healthy” are my stomach muscles, sigh)
After this incident, I used the staircase to the parking lot – I did not want another episode of being trapped in the elevator. Not another episode of muscle cramps as well.
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